Items tagged with spotify

Spotify has become the biggest streaming music service on the planet thanks to its vast artist library and its uncanny ability to learn your taste in music to keep you coming back for more. The company is apparently so confident in its ability to determine what you "like" that it is testing out a feature that will give free tier customers the ability to skip advertisements "any time they want". The company is currently trialing this new feature in Australia, which is a big step up from the way the current free tier works. In its current iteration, free tier listeners [understandably] are unable...Read more...

When it comes to digital music, streaming is king. Just a few years ago, it seemed as though we were all resigned to paying 99 cents per song or $10 for individual albums (thanks to Apple's iTunes push). However, the all-you-can-eat streaming music buffet is hard to ignore. We're now learning that Apple Music has surpassed reigning streaming music champ Spotify in U.S. subscriber numbers, which is a huge achievement for the service that launched nearly three years ago. The latest figures come courtesy of Digital Music News, which says that both Apple Music and Spotify have over 20 million...Read more...

Pandora is taking a page from Spotify's book and has unveiled a new plan that will let multiple family members have their own sub-accounts. The Pandora Premium Family Plan costs $14.99 per month, which is the same price Spotify asks for its family account. The new membership gives full access to Pandora Premium features for up to six people in the family. That is where Pandora is trying to set itself apart from the Spotify family plan with its five member slots. Each family member can listen to what they want, when they want. Each can create radio stations and custom playlists, download music for...Read more...

Apple has Spotify in its sights as the company to beat in the streaming music industry. Spotify currently has the most subscribers out there (75 million paying subscribers), but Apple is catching up. Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that Apple Music now has 50 million subscribers on the Bloomberg Television program “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.” Cook says that the service has over 50 million users between paid members and trial users. That it’s a marked gain in subscribers compared to the 38 million in March and 40 million in April. Apple is gaining about...Read more...

Apple Music and Spotify are in the middle of a battle for paid music subscribers and right now Apple Music is losing. Spotify boasts 70 million paid subscribers to Apple’s 38 million subscribers. Apple Music is growing faster though, and predictions are that Apple could overtake Spotify by the end of 2018. To hold Apple off, Spotify has decided to leverage something Apple can’t -- the free tier of its music service. Spotify currently boasts 90 million free subscribers and that service is essentially a loss leader meant to get users liking the music and then buy a [commercial free] subscription....Read more...

About a week ago we talked a bit about the rumors floating around that Spotify was working on a refreshed version of its mobile app and free tier service. New details on the revamped service have turned up and according to the rumors some users are already seeing a new UI and features. Among the new features in the revamped service are options to play songs on demand in select playlists. This is one of the features normally reserved for premium subscribers. Spotify has an event set for April 24 where the new free service is expected to be officially unveiled. The refreshed UI for the free...Read more...

Apple Music wants to beat Spotify in the streaming music game. Apple's streaming music service has been growing at about 5% per month compared to Spotify's 2% growth per month. At that pace, some in the industry think that Apple could have more subscribers than Spotify by the end of 2018. Spotify currently has around 76 million paid subscribers. Apple's latest Apple Music subscriber count puts the tech giant's service at 40 million users. That is up 2 million since last month when the service reported 38 million subscribers. That gain in such a short time signals that Apple's growth is accelerating....Read more...

Spotify is working on wooing more customers to its free music service by making it easier to use. The rumor comes from people who claim to be familiar with the company's plans. This will be the first major change to the Spotify service since the company went public last week. Spotify maintains that 2 million people are illegally listening to its paid music service. The free service is supported by ads, while the paid service is ad-free. The source of the rumor claims that an announcement of the revised service is expected in the next couple weeks. Exactly what the updated service will feature is...Read more...

Spotify fans will be glad to hear that the streaming music giant is set to enter the hardware space with some sort of gadget for the car. Word is that the hardware device will launch on April 24, and the news comes after Spotify was seen posting job openings for "hardware production" workers. Initially many thought that Spotify would be jumping into the smart speaker realm along with seemingly every other tech company. It's now looking like Spotify has something different in store for its gadget. The image you see above is said to have been seen by multiple Spotify users via a pop-up from the Spotify...Read more...

Spotify is headed towards a pivotal moment with an initial public offering (IPO) looming next month. As the world's largest music streaming service, there is a lot of buzz surrounding the company's IPO. Leading up to the big day, Spotify made an interesting revelation, saying that around two million music listeners have managed to skip listening to ads without being a paid subscriber by using unauthorized third-party apps designed to block ads. These apps can essentially be seen as ad blockers for Spotify. It's unfortunate for Spotify, which offers two main tiers to choose from—a free music...Read more...

It's been a while since we heard much out of the RIAA after the organization was frequently in the news during its hunt to force anyone who even thought about illegally downloading music to pay damages. At times, the RIAA filed suits against deceased people essentially making it look like the bad guy to many music fans. The RIAA has now released information that looks at revenue statistics from 2017 and the music industry saw some growth last year. According to the statistics, revenue from recorded music in the U.S. increased 16.5% to an estimated retail value of $8.7 billion. Wholesale revenues...Read more...

Spotify is handing out some harsh warnings to Android users that are using hacked apps, bypassing its paywall to access premium content without paying. Spotify's premium tier allows listeners to skip the commercials and download tunes directly to their devices. Spotify has sent out warning emails to an unknown number of users warning them against using the hacked apps. The emails warn that the use of these hacked apps violates the terms of using Spotify and could result in account termination. One of these hacks is called "Dogfood" and Spotify recently had it removed from GitHub after having an...Read more...

Spotify might be the biggest music streaming service out there right now, but that doesn't mean that it is turning a profit. Spotify has filed with the SEC to allow it to begin selling shares publicly via an IPO. Spotify will be listed on the NYSE and will use the ticker name "SPOT." The filing has shed some insight into what the company might be worth. According to the company, it has been selling shares on private markets for as much as $132.50 per share. That would indicate a value of over $23 billion based on the ordinary shares outstanding as of February 22 reports CNBC. We do know some specifics...Read more...

The top dog in the streaming music business in the United States is Spotify, which boasts more paid subscribers than any of its rivals. However, that could change by the end of the year. Apple Music is on pace to overtake Spotify in paid subscriber numbers in the US by the end of the year, as Apple has been able to generate a higher subscriber rate for its streaming music service than Spotify since launching in June 2015. Citing "people in the record business familiar with figures reported by two service," The Wall Street Journal says Apple's streaming music service is growing at a 5 percent clip...Read more...